KDE 4.0 Beta 4

With the fourth Beta, the KDE project would like to collect feedback to
ensure the quality of KDE 4.0.

October 30, 2007 (The INTERNET).

The KDE Community is happy to release the
fourth Beta for KDE 4.0. This Beta aimed at further polishing of
the KDE codebase and we would love to start receiving feedback from
testers.
As KDE has largely has been in bugfix mode, this latest Beta aims to
encourage testers to have a look at it to help us find and solve
the remaining problems and bugs. Besides the stabilization of the
codebase, some minor features have been added, including but not
limited to much work on Plasma,
the KDE 4 desktop shell.
Sebastian Kügler notes: "The improvements have been huge, and plasma
is much closer to what it needs to be before the release. I am
confident we will be able to finish it and present a very usable
plasma to our userbase with KDE 4.0. We will then be able to extend
on that and present truly innovative desktop interfaces throughout
the KDE 4 lifecycle.

Beta 4

With the fourth Beta, the KDE developers hope to collect comments and bug reports
from the wider KDE community. With their help, we hope to solve the most
pressing problems with the current KDE 4 codebase to ensure the final 4.0
release is usable. We would like to encourage anyone who is willing and able to
spend some time on testing to find and report
problems to the KDE developers.

Release blockers

Several Beta
Goals have been formulated, and as long as these are not ready, we will
continue to release Betas.

For developers

At the same time, the KDE community
unleashes
a release candidate for the
KDE Development Platform, the collection of libraries that are needed
to develop and run KDE 4 applications. This development platform aims at making
it possible for third parties to start porting their applications without the
need to compile everything from KDE's source code repository. The final
KDE 4 Development Platform will follow shortly, as soon as it is made sure that
the current snapshot does not contains any grave bugs.

Next Up

While the last improvements will be made in the coming weeks, as soon as the Betacycle
objectives are met, we will start preparing our first Release Candidate.
This marks the beginning of a short period where we will allow only the most
important bugfixes in preparation for the release.

Get it, run it, test it...

For those interested in getting packages to test and contribute, several
distributions notified us that they will have KDE 4.0 Beta 4 packages available
at or soon after the release. The complete and current list can be found on the
KDE 4 Beta 4 Info Page, where you
can also find links to the source code, information about compiling, security
and other issues.

Compiled by Jos Poortvliet and Sebastian Kügler with extensive help
from the KDE community

About KDE 4

KDE 4 is the next generation of the popular KDE Desktop Environment which seeks
to fulfill the need for a powerful yet easy to use desktop for UNIX and LINUX
workstations. The aim of the KDE project for the 4.0 release is to put the
foundations in place for future innovations on the Free Desktop. The many newly
introduced technologies incorporated in the KDE libraries will make it easier
for developers to add rich functionality to their applications, combining and
connecting different components in any way they want.

About KDE

KDE is an international technology team that creates free
and open source software for desktop and portable computing. Among
KDE's products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms,
comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds of
software titles in many categories including Internet and web
applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and
software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60
languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility
principles in mind. KDE's full-featured applications run natively on
Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X.

Trademark Notices.
KDE® and the K Desktop Environment® logo are
registered trademarks of KDE e.V.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and
other countries.
All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are
the property of their respective owners.